The Nerve Insider by Nicole Ankowski What's new in the Nerve universe. Today: A sneak peak at the Apocalypse, er, Ali and Dina Lohan’s new reality show.
When I agree to go "undercover" to a WNYC 40 & Under Singles Event, my friends — devoted listeners of public radio — are annoyed.
"You don't even listen to public radio," they point out.
"But I like public-radio people," I respond.
This is true. Public-radio people, as much as they exist as a self-contained subculture (the studious-yet-conspicuous glasses, the liberal bent, the tote bags) are my kind of people. At least, I assume they are. I'm a near-sighted, college-educated book reviewer. Except for the minor detail that I don't actually listen to public radio, I fit snugly within the demographic.
Also, I'm newly single. The event promises me a valuable opportunity: a chance to
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suss out my compatibility with those I assume will be semi-pretentious, philanthropically inclined and media savvy. It's a project with great journalistic merit.
Of course, this is all in the abstract. When I get off the L train and catch my solitary reflection in the window of a Polish deli, I feel more alone than single. I also feel a little soft in the guts.
I remember a time when being single felt like a constant, insatiable hunger, when every trip to the supermarket was a possible run-in with a girlfriend-to-be, every hastily chosen seat in a movie theater a potential conduit to a love tryst. These days are not those days. This time around, singleness feels less like hunger and more like mild nausea.
Which is still how I feel when I enter the Brooklyn Brewery — a little less than confident. But I'm also not alone: I've brought a friend, and I've sent him in before me to case the joint.
As I shuffle toward a table of nametags at the entrance, Jon comes out to fill me in. He's wearing the cultivated scruff of the underemployed actor: a pink short-sleeve button-down, a trucker hat and three days of stubble. The image of the casual-yet-curious single man. I'm wearing a work-appropriate polo shirt and slacks, which makes me feel like an asshole.
"There's one hot girl here," he says, "but I think she's with her boyfriend."
Ridiculous, but somehow not surprising. Even in the tenuous havens of the unallied, the coupled folk
These days, singleness feels less like hunger and more like mild nausea.
follow and mock.
I pick up a nametag and scribble my signature across the bottom. I notice my tag is labeled "Oxytocin." Jon's, I see, says "Dopamine." I experience a brief wave of anxiety. Dopamine, I'm inexplicably convinced, is much better. Have I fucked up already?
I turn to the ladies behind the nametag table. They're both wearing white lab coats, which is obliquely creepy. I notice that one of them, a short girl with a short brown ponytail, is potentially cute.
"So what are these chemicals all about?" I ask.
"They're for a game you'll be playing later," Ponytail says.
You'll be playing? Ouch.
"You know, this is Radio Lab — 'Where science bumps into culture.'"
I know from my "research" that the event is being hosted by the NPR program of that name, though I'd never heard of it before I got my ticket, let alone listened to it.
"Of course," I say. "But is Dopamine better than Oxytocin?"
Ponytail lets a relaxed, sympathetic smile spread across her face.
